One of the most confusing aspects of narcissism is that identical behaviors have entirely different psychodynamic etiologies. Consider, for example the connection between abuse and parentifying the intimate partner.

A conundrum: the narcissist tries to convert people in his life into parental figures – but this only recreates and re-enacts and triggers unresolved childhood conflicts, retraumatizes the narcissist, and opens old wounds.

From women, the narcissist wants any of these 3 Ss: supply (sadistic and narcissistic), sex (and adventures, a playmate), and services (mother-housewife, PA, and housekeeper).

From men, he wants both supply (sadistic and narcissistic) and services (business).

Outside these transactions, he expects to be left completely alone, to his own devices and to do as he pleases (schizoid).

Since no one will agree to these terms, he has to fake emotions and commitment and make false promises (within the narrative of a shared fantasy). This is the grooming and lovebombing honeymoon phase. It makes its appearance as much in business and the workplace as in romantic courtship.

Once the target (source) is acquired, the narcissist sees no reason to continue his act. He reveals his true agenda: to extract adulation (narcissistic supply), abuse and humiliate (sadistic supply), engage in sadistic sex (with women), and demand services and beneficial outcomes (such as money, celebrity, access, or power).

In essence, the narcissist expects his partners – both intimate and business - to act as his greatest fans, adventurous (and sluttish) playmates or co-conspirators, and parental figures.

There are two phases in the narcissist’s relationships in which he tends to be egregiously and cruelly abusive: during the shared fantasy and in the interstitial or bargaining stages. Put together, these two forms of maltreatment constitute the narcissist’s two-pronged approach-avoidance repetition compulsion.

Only the abuse in the shared fantasy phase is a recreation of the original conflict (archaic wound, V-spot) with his mother and it is, therefore, compulsive, even, at times, unconscious.

The subsequent abuse during the interstitial or bargaining phase is entirely different: it is instrumental and goal-focused.

Once the mask slipped and the narcissist’s true face and intentions are exposed, both men and women feel bemused, deceived, angry (mad, furious), disappointed, heartbroken, and made fools of.

They start to mourn the relationship (Kubler-Ross stages of grief) and go through denial, anger, bargaining (they pose demands and I push them away and absent myself), depression (when deceitful cheating occurs) and acceptance, when they all end up walking away from me and, often, also retaliate (women by cheating on me egregiously and ostentatiously and men by smearing me, replacing me with others, and absconding with my ideas and intellectual property).

The Narcissist’s Abuse during the Bargaining (Interstitial I) Phase

To get rid of both men and women in the bargaining phase, the narcissist abuses and undermines the intimacy or the collaboration, thus pushing people to:

1. Replace him (cheat on him, in case of women); and 2. Abandon him (he pushes them away).

Unlike in the Shared Fantasy Phase, such repelling behavior in the bargaining phase is not a repetition compulsion involving early trauma and conflicts with his mother or father: it is an MO that applies to men, women, and even to collectives, authority figures, and authorities (schools, army, workplaces, even countries).

But the outcomes of this ineluctable process are different for men and women:

When women cheat on the heterosexual narcissist and abandon him (or abandon and then replace him with other men), it ends up recreating the trauma with his mother and results in mortification.

Only women have this power.

Men can only cause him extreme narcissistic injury coupled with aggression, externalized or interiorized (depression). Most often they humiliate him and them walk away and team up with others.

People - men and women alike - are a burden and a drain on the narcissist’s energy for two reasons: 1. He regards them as inferior and holds them in contempt 2. He resents his total dependence on them.

To summarize:

Women cheat on the narcissist, deceive and betray him, and then abandon him owing only to his abuse and lack of commitment and investment in the dyad.

Abuse during shared fantasy ALWAYS leads to deceitful or discreet cheating.

Some women attempt to keep their deceitful cheating plausibly deniable but fail. Others convert deceitful cheating to an ostentatious one.

But many women cheat on the narcissist and try to deceive him - usually with casual partners - during the shared fantasy. All of them strive to maintain the relationship after the cheating for self-interested reasons.

The cheating is intended to satisfy their panoply of profoundly unmet emotional and physical needs even as they keep on keeping on and futilely sue and hope for commitment and investment on the narcissist’s part.

As the abuse continues unabated also during the failed bargaining phase, it leads to ostentatious cheating and betrayal (usually with intimate friends) as a part of retaliatory abandonment.

The narcissist facilitates this misconduct with his uninterrupted abuse as an attempt to regain a faux sense of mastery and to delusionally reframe an impending external mortification as an internal one.

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